Haiku: This Other World:The Last Poetry of Richard Wright

As good a haiku poet as this country has ever produced."--Seattle WeeklyLike all great writers, Richard Wright never failed to create works of breathtaking originality, depth, and beauty. With Native Son he gave us Bigger Thomas, still one of the most provocative and controversial characters in fiction. With Black Boy he offered a candid and searing depiction of racism and poverty in America. And now, forty years after his death, he has bestowed us with one of the finest collections of haiku in American literature.Wright became enamored of haiku at the end of his life, and in this strict, seventeen-syllable form he discovered another way of looking at the world. He rendered images of nature and humanity that raised questions and revealed strikingly fresh perspectives. The publication of this collection is not only one of the greatest posthumous triumphs of American letters but also a final testament to the noble spirit and enduring artistry of Richard Wright.-Amazon.ca Richard Wright, one of the early forceful and eloquent spokesmen for black Americans, author of Native Son and Black Boy, was also, it turns out, a major poet. During the last eighteen months of his life, he discovered and became enamored of haiku, the strict seventeen-syllable Japanese form. Wright became so excited about the discovery that he began writing his own haiku, in which he attempted to capture, through his sensibility as an African American, the same Zen discipline and beauty in depicting man's relationship, not to his fellow man as he had in his fiction, but to nature and the natural world. In all, he wrote over 4,000 haiku, from which he chose, before he died, the 817 he preferred. Rather than a deviation from his self appointed role as spokesman for black Americans of his time, Richard Wright's haiku, disciplined and steeped in beauty, are a culmination: not only do they give added scope to his work but they bring to it a universality that transcends both race and color without ever denying them. Dazzling Collection Of 810 Haiku Written By The Late African-american Author Of Native Son Holds True To The Traditional Zen Discipline Of Depicting The Relationship Between Man And Nature, But Does So From The Perspective Of An African-american Man. Introduction / Julia Wright -- Editors' Note -- Haiku: This Other World -- Notes On The Haiku -- Afterword / Yoshinobu Hakutani And Robert L. Tener -- Notes. By Richard Wright ; Edited And With Notes And Afterword By Yoshinobu Hakutani And Robert L. Tener ; Introduction By Tk ; Preface By Julia Wright. Includes Bibliographical References.